Historic Maine bargain opens way for return of Atlantic salmon runs

It was a historic day for the Atlantic salmon.

In an unprecedented move, a coalition that includes an Indian tribe, environmentalists, government, and a power company agreed Monday to open 500 miles of the Penobscot River watershed to the en- dangered salmon and 10 other species of migrating fish.

Two old dams on the lower Penobscot River will be demolished. Another dam will be overhauled to include a fish bypass.

The agreement to open and restore the Penobscot, Maine's most important river, came after four years of talks. One partici-pant called it a win-win agreement for everyone. At the same time, all sides had to give up something valuable.

"We've been fighting these dams for 20 years, and we've almost never been happy with the results," says coalition member Jeff Reardon of the Virginia-based nonprofit Trout Unlimited. "Here we had a choice - keep fighting and losing, or sit down and talk. We sat down, and we did make concessions, but the overall result has been better than what we've achieved through the courts in 20 years."

The plan would undo the consequences of two centuries of Maine dam building. It would demolish two old dams, the Great Works at Old Town and the Veazie Dam above Bangor. The Howland at West Enfield would get a fish bypass.

Though nearly 590 US dams have been demolished in the US in recent years, they've gone down piecemeal - the casualties of individual court battles. Mainers say that never to their knowledge has any community worked together to enact such a comprehensive plan to save a valuable ecosystem - while retaining 90 percent of its power generating capacity.

The partnership, known as the Penobscot River Restoration Project, includes the PPL Corporation (owner of the three dams), the Penobscot Nation, several state and federal agencies and a number of natural resources organizations.

The dams had become accepted fixtures in communities here.

For half a century, Connie and George Cormier have fallen asleep to the hiss of water rolling over the Veazie Dam. When they bought their house on the bluffs of Maine's Penobscot River, nearly every man in town worked at operating the dam. The river was so full of salmon then that in spawing season, the Cormiers say, they'd literally jump into your canoe.

Nobody fishes salmon in these waters anymore, Mrs. Cormier says, and the generations of Veazie men who spent their lives holding back the river are all but gone, victims of a mechanized age.

The consortium that made the river agreement hopes it will aid the comeback of wild salmon on the eastern seaboard, and perhaps provide a model for restoring diminished salmon populations out West. The collaboration might also suggest a way, participants say, for environmental and commercial interests nationwide to strike liveable compromises.

Sacrifice was part of this deal.

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